Monrovia – An international non-governmental organization, the ‘Sons and Daughters of Thunder Liberation Center Liberia’, has unveiled plans for the construction a rehabilitation center for women addicted to drugs and other harmful substances.
According to the group, the construction of the Women’s Drug Rehabilitation Discipleship Home in Caldwell will begin in the upcoming months. The project, it said, is funded and sponsored by Joseph F. Gaar and the Gaar Law firm located in Lafayette, Louisiana, United States of America.
“The new home will give women who are addicted to drugs the opportunity to come up out of the ghettos and cemeteries and be delivered from addiction once and for all and to become Disciples of Jesus Christ, Women of God and law-abiding Liberian citizens,” the group said in a statement issued in Monrovia recently.
The widespread use of drugs among young people in Liberia is one of the visible scars left by the devastating civil war. Across Monrovia and almost every part of the country, it is easy to find dozens of these young people that have been referred to as ‘Zogos’ roaming the streets and living in abandoned buildings and cemeteries.
In Monrovia alone which is the epicenter of this precarious situation, unofficial estimates put the figure between 4,000 to 6,000; with 10 to 20 percent constituting women.
The group said it is intervening to open a rescue center for these women who “Find themselves addicted to drugs in Liberia and are vulnerable and most often exploited, while many become pregnant with no prenatal care or the ability to be able to have a healthy pregnancy.”
Currently, with the revised drugs law still being debated at the Legislature awaiting passage in to law, the group said there are very few options for the rehabilitation of these women in the country that are desperately in need of help.
Due to the urgency of the situation, the group said it will be conducting a ground-breaking ceremony this November for the new Women’s Discipleship Home which will be a place of deliverance, healing, rehabilitation, restoration, vocational training and discipleship.
The proposed home, it noted, will be located at the Sons & Daughters of Thunder Liberation Center Liberia headquarters and will be constructed on the same lot of land that the Children’s Safe Home has been built; adding that the Liberation Center Liberia will help both the children of drug addicted mother and the women themselves at the same location.
It extended heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Mr. Joseph F. Gaar and the Gaar Law firm for their willingness to sponsor the project and called on others, including private firms, humanitarian organizations and philanthropists both in Liberia and abroad to render their support to help rescue these women and children.